


When all your rage has left you

by 1TeaBinch



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:49:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28210437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1TeaBinch/pseuds/1TeaBinch
Summary: So, i've had this horribly angsty and painful idea churning around in my brain for months now. And I finally felt like I could put it into a fic. So here it is.I'll say ahead of time that I do have an idea for a follow up. One that makes it hurt less. I'm still working out the details, but as painful as the ending is, it will get better.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 69





	1. Chapter 1

She doesn’t know when it all went so wrong. Maybe it was when she agreed to help Horde Prime. Or when the Rebellion rescued Glimmer. No…

It went wrong when she didn’t leave. When she didn’t go with Adora.

-

It was chaos. The site leading up to the entrance to the Heart. Clones swarming the woods, laser cannons obliterating trees and cover.

The Rebellion had tried to stop them. Of course they did. Catra watched from the shadows as the princesses started tearing through Horde Prime’s clones. Lead by She-ra- no, Adora. She looked different.

She glowed with power, like she always did when she was She-ra, but everything else about her, her clothes, her hair, her eyes. They all screamed Adora, and Catra didn’t know how to deal with it. 

She jumped in, trying in vain to take her down. But, when Adora’s soft blue eyes looked at her, she couldn’t bring herself to strike. And Adora, stupid stupid stupid Adora. She let her go. When Catra froze, Adora moved on, striking down clones in a whirlwind of steel and magic. She should’ve killed her then.

She knew someone was yelling at her, a clone probably, but Catra couldn’t hear, memories of a gap toothed girl’s smile invading her thoughts. 

Until the ground around her shook, forcing Catra to finally take in her surroundings. 

She watched as Adora was staring at her, eyes wide, mid throw. Glancing to her side she saw the reason, a clone had tried to blast her. And Adora stupid, kind Adora. Had thrown away her only weapon to save her.

She turned back in shock, in fear, only to watch Adora get hit, clones from every direction firing upon her all at once. 

She reaches towards Adora and screams, and no one hears it, as Adora’s body rockets out of the dust. The force of all the blasts sending her flying. 

Catra watches in horror as Adora’s body tumbles along the ground, joints and body bending and twisting are horrifying angles, until with a loud crack. She slams back first into a tree. Massive even amongst the rest of the woods. It cracks and shifts with the force of her impact.

Catra can’t think, can’t breathe, she’s running before she can realize it. Watching Adora lift her head to meet the clone walking up to her.  
She can see Adora try to lift her arms, to stand up. There’s cuts and blood all over her now. She-ra dissipating in the blast.

The clone steps up to her, and pushes her back against the tree with his cannon. Catra can see his lips moving, but she can’t hear him over the battle, over the blood in her ears. 

And then Adora’s looking away from him, and right into Catra’s eyes. And she smiles.

It’s a tired, beaten thing, but it’s bright like Catra remembers. 

The canon fires…

She’s screaming something, she knows. But she can’t hear herself, doesn’t register anything except the sharp jerk of Adora’s body into the tree. 

She watches Adora’s golden hair fall around her face. Watches her slump, a crater in her chest, blackened and smoking.

She’s midair before she realizes. Claws ripping the clone in two. The pit of grief and guilt consumed with rage like she’s never felt. And she keeps moving, keeps tearing, keeps bleeding.

-

It was going well. They managed to get their main troops in position before Prime arrived. Managing to tear through a large number of their forces before they even notice. 

It’s a perfect strategy she thinks. Until she hears Catra. Hears her scream like a banshee in the night. It curdles her blood and freezes her mid blast. She whips around too late. Watches Adora’s body slam back into a large tree, the force of a blaster cannon point blank into her chest shifting the roots back.

She barely registers Catra a moment later. Claws cleaving the clone responsible in two. And then she’s on the next one and the next. Catra rips through them one by one. A blur on the battlefield, decimating clone after clone. 

“To me!” she shouts, her voice sounds hollow.

Her allies are around her in an instant. And the next they appear in front of Adora’s unmoving body. 

She hears her allies gasps and crys. Watches Perfuma immediately kneel down and start examining the hole in her chest. Before she can even give an order, Mermista and Frosta are creating a dome of ice. Netossa immediately reinforcing it. She’s never seen rage like this, never felt it like this.

“Keep her safe.” Is all she says before she’s outside of their protective dome. Glittering fist sending a blast like the one Adora took, into a clone’s chest. 

-

The dome lasts. Just barely, but it does. She realizes it some time after she stops hearing the cannon’s firing nearby. Confirms it herself.

It’s nearly quiet. Nearly. She walks towards the only sound left. 

-

She sits in an empty clearing in the woods. Clone bodies littering the grass nearby. Kneeling over the last clone, but she doesn’t look at him or his blood coating her hands. 

Glimmer finds her in that clearing, staring up into the sky. Crying. Crying like someone who watched the sun die. The world turn to ice after.

She sees Catra rip the remaining clone apart. The almost casual and detached way she cleaves through his chest.

And then she staggers to her feet. Sobs fading, she turns toward Glimmer. Glimmer freezes, she knows she should run or subdue Catra. She’s dangerous. But Catra doesn’t see her, or doesn’t care. She hobbles past. 

Glimmer barely has time to take in how Catra looks. She’s covered in a horrible collage of the hers and clone blood. She’s bleeding, and burnt, and none of it matters. Because when Glimmer looks at her eyes, she knows Catra’s gone. She looks past Glimmer like a ghost finally going to rest.

She follows Catra. Across the ruined woods, the battlefield littered with bodies. The dome is let down when Glimmer shows up. Waving the group down. Catra doesn’t react at all. Not to the princesses around her, or to even Entrapta or Scorpia.

She trudges past their words and their concern and drops to her knees in front of Adora’s still body. 

The group is silent. A deathly silence at the end of a war. Catra grabs at Adora’s frame. Wrapping her in her arms, like a child cradling some treasure they found. And she cries. 

A horrible sound. Haunting and broken.  
Glimmer teleports them away.

-

She returns with Bow, and only Bow. They sit down on either side of Catra and they wait. Until the tears dry up. Until Catra’s voice starts to give. Until she can’t stay conscious and her body gives out, still wrapped around Adora.

They stay...


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, as promised, a part two that will hopefully provide a good closure and a happy ending. One I hadn't really planned on, but decided to do because of a friend's reaction to reading the first part. She also helped me actually edit, because i'm god awful at editing and picked up a sudden, bad, writing habit between chapters.
> 
> I feel like I should leave a content warning for suicidal ideation for this chapter. It gets kinda dark towards the end, so if that is something that's particularly upsetting to you, take care of yourself, your safety and wellbeing is most important.

She's floating when she wakes, at least it feels that way, it's pleasant. Like she's vapor gently passing through the air.  There's light, and noise, muffled speech she can hear but not understand.  And a scent, familiar and distant all at once. _Adora…_

Catra shoots up, adrenaline rushing through her veins. 

She's in a brightly lit room, full of pinks and purples… and magic. She's on a bed, a ridiculously soft one, and surrounding the whole thing is a wall of gently glowing orange light.  She reaches out to touch the glowing barrier and it's warm. A soothing sensation so unlike any of her previous encounters with magic. 

Right as her hand passes through, it vanishes, and the warmth with it.  Pain spreads through her quickly then, remnants of burns and cuts aching across her body.

_ Adora… _

She forces herself up. Staggering to the door and shoving it open with her weight, only to run directly into an armored figure with a spear. 

Catra snarls as her body screams from the sudden stop.

The figure turns to her. "You should go back to bed. Your wounds aren't healed yet." 

She snarls again, this time extending her claws. The figure doesn't move.

"Take. Me. To. Adora." Catra says through gritted teeth. 

The figure doesn't respond. Doesn't even react to her request and it's pissing her off.

"Now!" She shouts-- and immediately breaks into a coughing fit.

"You need water, and to rest." She hears the figure say, when she looks back up they're gone.

"Useless." 

Steadying herself against the wall, Catra starts walking through the corridors. They're too bright and colorful, just like the room. All pastels and windows and high arches.  She shuffles past a few people dressed like the figure outside her door. Guards she assumes. And they're not restraining her, which is a surprise.  She follows the curved hallways to a set of large closed doors and pushes through.

"Heavy." She grunts, barely making it through before collapsing on her hands and knees. Her eyes screw shut and she's coughing again, the pain doing nothing to quell the growing anger and frustration.

"Catra?" A voice cuts through. Glimmer, she recalls.

"Catra, you should be in bed, you're still injured." Glimmer continues as she approaches.

Catra can feel Glimmer gently helping her to her feet, she opens her eyes to see Glimmer's concerned face, noting the bags under her eyes.

"Adora… where's Adora." 

Glimmer's concern shifts to something sad. She jerks her head towards the center of the room.  There, laying on an intricate table of pink crystal, is Adora.

Catra breaks out of Glimmer's grip, sprinting, or trying to. She practically slams into the table, eyes scanning Adora's body, searching for life.

Adora doesn't move. 

Catra traces her hand over the bandages covering up Adora's torso. She remembers the charred crater. How the smell suffocated and burned her sensitive nose.

She wants to scream, or vomit, she starts dry heaving just at the thought of it all.  Glimmer's hand is on her back right after. And she speaks to someone in the room that Catra didn't even see.

By the time she's finished Glimmer is sitting next to her offering her some water. Arrow boy sitting next to her. That must've been who she was talking to.  Catra downs the water in one go and the next glass too. She's shaking. Can feel the tremors growing. But then Glimmer and Bow are holding her. And the cold seeps away just a little bit. Just enough.

"What- what's wrong with her." Catra manages to ask. 

She feels both of them stiffen against her.

"She's-" Glimmer starts, voice watery. "She's gone."

Catra's shaking again, the cold gripping her even tighter. She shoves away from Glimmer and Bow, staggering to her feet.

"No!" She screams. "No, she's not, she's She-Ra, she's your stupid fucking hero! She can't. She can't…"

Glimmer and Bow glance at each other. Pain crossing their faces before they look at Catra. They stand up and reach out towards her. 

"No!" Catra shouts again, voice shaking and claws swiping weakly at them. "Use your stupid princess magic then! Help her! Do something! Anything!"

Tears are blurring her vision and she can see them mirrored in both Glimmer and Bow's faces. "Please, do something." She whispers and it sounds like surrender.

  
  
  
  
  


They take her back to her room.

-

Catra doesn't really know what happens after. She barely registers Bow and Glimmer and them bringing her food, sometimes talking.

The sun sets and she lays in the bed, Adora's bed, she vaguely remembers Bow saying. This was Adora's room that she woke up in, it smells like her, she wants to drown in it.

If only she had left with Adora, then Adora would be here with her, instead of a phantom in these walls. A memory of happier times.

-

It's a few days later when Bow and Glimmer come to her again. They sit quietly in Adora's room and wait for Catra to say something.  She wants them to leave. She wants to sink into the floor and disappear. But she doesn't and they don't.

"What do you two want?" Catra says, trying to inject venom into the words. They come out hollow.

Glimmer takes a breath before she speaks. 

"Before the battle." She says, and Catra can hear the quiver in her voice. "Adora took a failsafe. To free the heart of Etheria, to free its magic."

"Of course she did." Catra snorts. "And what? Now that's ruined?" She tries not to cry at the implication in her words.

"We,- me and Bow are going to take her there. We're going to try to release it." 

That gets Catra's attention. She's upright and livid when she meets Glimmer's eyes. 

"You what? She died for your war!" She shouts, her claws sinking into the mattress. "She gave everything for your Rebellion and you want more from her? Are you fucking joking right now, because it's not funny!"

"It's not like that!" Glimmer counters

"Then what is it like! Tell me, because I don't get it, Sparkles!" 

Glimmer's trembling in her seat, trying to calm down.

"She-Ra and the heart are connected." Bow says softly, as Catra shifts her glare to him. "If we release the heart, maybe, I don't know. Maybe it'll help somehow. Besides, it's what Adora wanted. We should at least try."

Catra stares him down. And to his credit. Bow doesn't flinch, doesn't look away. She can see the pain she wishes wasn't there. It'd be so much easier if they didn't care about Adora. If they were the monsters she hoped they were.

"I'm coming," Catra grits out, storming through the door right after.

-

Glimmer and Bow try to talk her out of it the whole walk to the throne room. She doesn't register a word of it. 

Catra's in front of Adora's body before she knows it. She looks so much more peaceful than Catra had ever seen her. If anyone deserved peace, she thinks, it was Adora. Catra traces Adora’s jaw with her fingers, cups her cheek and shuts her eyes to keep back the tears. 

Glimmer and Bow go quiet then.

When she opens them again she's determined, gently, she lifts Adora off the table. One arm under her knees the other around her shoulders.

"Lead the way, Sparkles."

-

It's easier to get there than any of them expect. After the battle Horde Prime had to regroup, their sneak attack apparently had decimated his forces, forcing him to wait for backup to arrive. Glimmer teleports them to the Crystal Castle and  Catra starts leading without a word. She remembers the way this place messed with her, the way it showed her visions of her past. Catra remembers the heartbreak in Adora’s face when she let her fall. She shakes her head clear of the thoughts.

“You okay, Catra?” Glimmer says behind her.

“I’m fine.” 

A moment of quiet.

“Catra, you’re not, none of us are, it’s okay.” Bow says this time.

She’s growling now. “I said, I’m fine!”

She feels a hand gently settle on each shoulder, and tears away, turning to snarl at Glimmer and Bow.

“Catra.” Glimmer starts, in a gentle tone. Gentler than Catra’s ever heard her. 

She can see them both now, Glimmer’s magic lighting the area. They both look tired, there are bags under their eyes, and tears forming at the edges. 

Bow continues, “She was our friend too. We loved her too.” And gods does that hurt.  It’s the truth she’s been burying every moment since Adora left. That despite everything, she still cared, still loved Adora.

The tears that were only forming a moment before are now freely flowing down her cheeks.

“It’s my fault.” She manages to gasp out, between quiet sobs. “She asked me, begged me, to come with her. And every time, every chance, and I hurt her for it. And now she’s gone and I don’t know what to do.”

Catra shuts her eyes, willing the tears to stop.

“Catra.” Glimmer starts, and she’s so tired of it. So tired of the sadness in her chest, or the pain in everyone’s voices whenever they talk to her, or about Adora.

She looks towards the tunnel, and there’s a glow. Soft, barely noticeable, but it’s there.

She’s running before she realizes it. Glimmer and Bow chasing after her, shouting her name. She chases it blindly, hopelessly, a candle in a snowstorm. Not enough warmth to do anything, but she’s desperate.

She stops in a large cavernous room, with a single massive geometric structure in the center of the ceiling. It pulses slowly, gently. A fading light in a dark expanse.

Glimmer and Bow dash in behind her.

“The Heart! We found it, now what do we do?” Bow says.

She doesn’t know, the room is empty with the floor angling to a platform under the Heart, but nothing else. 

Catra walks, she stands under the soft glow, and nothing happens.

“It didn’t work.” She says plainly.

“No, it’s just, we need to do something with the failsafe, it’ll work, we just have to figure out how to activate it. She-Ra was the key, we just need to figure out how to make it understand that she’s here.” Glimmer’s rambling now, all nerves and desperation. 

Catra laughs, it’s mirthless and empty, the way she feels.

She kneels, laying Adora on the floor of the platform, reverently, with more care than she’s shown for anything in this life. 

“Go home Sparkles.” She says, like it’s her usual jab, but there’s no heat in it. “Just go home.”

The light above them dims even more in the following silence. The last embers fizzling out.

“We can’t just give up!” Glimmer protests, because of course she does. 

Catra doesn’t have it in her to hold back anymore. She’s on her feet, claws drawn, in an instant.

“I said _leave!_ Your plan didn’t work, your precious She-Ra is gone, Adora’s gone and she’s not coming back, so just leave!” She’s shaking, a fleeting rage simmering to her core. The light dies. Catra thinks a part of her does too. “Just leave…”

The castle shakes after, little bits of crystal and rock peppering the ground around them. Glimmer’s magic lights up the cavern shortly after.

“We need to go! Without the Heart this place is gonna cave in, come on, Catra.”

Glimmer reaches out to her. Catra stares at her outstretched hand for what feels like an eternity. A lifetime of bright smiles, golden hair, and eyes like the clear sky on a warm day playing through her mind. 

She turns away from Glimmer and lays down next to Adora, wraps herself around her like when they were kids, legs tangled together, head on Adora’s chest, tail around Adora’s waist.

More of the ceiling starts to collapse, rocks tumbling along the walls.

“Catra! We have to go, now!” Glimmer yells, and it doesn’t matter.

“Glimmer, we can’t stay, you have to get us out of here.”

“Catra!” Glimmer’s pleading now, she’s never heard Glimmer beg like this.

“Just let me go, Sparkles, there’s nothing left for me. Let me just have this.”

Glimmer doesn’t respond. The last light in the room fades, but Catra keeps her eyes open. Her right hand reaches up to trace along Adora’s cheek. It used to be chubbier. She remembers when Adora was still a teenager, baby fat staying longer than the other cadets. Catra had teased Adora for it then, but she thought it was cute. A soft edge compared to all the sharp ones they had gotten used to. 

She traces down Adora’s neck, stopping on her collarbone. A faint series of scars littered the skin there. She remembers not long after she met Adora, play fighting together even though everyone else wouldn’t fight Catra because of her claws. They were right to avoid it because Catra ended up accidently cutting across Adora’s collarbone with them. She had felt so guilty over it, and Weaver made sure she hurt for it. But Adora didn’t mind, didn’t even get mad at her. She gave her the biggest hug after she got out of the infirmary and told her the scars would make her look cool.

She traces over the bandages on Adora’s chest. There should be claw marks there. Or a scar from when Adora fell off the pipes climbing after Catra. Or a thousand different little imperfections. Not this.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you needed me, Adora. I wish I had the chance to be there for you now. I’d do it better this time. I’d love you better, this time.”

She’s crying again, tears soaking Adora’s chest. “Maybe in another life.” 

It’s almost peaceful. After a lifetime clawing to the top just to get respect, letting go is a relief.

A relief that doesn’t come.

It should be over. She shouldn’t feel… warm? The rocks aren’t falling anymore, she realizes.

Catra opens her eyes, and hisses at the blinding light that meets them. She shields her eyes from the light until it slowly fades to a soft glow.  A glow centered on Adora’s chest, a symbol she doesn’t remember ever seeing, but one that reminds her of the First Ones tech she’d found in the past.  The soft light from it engulfs Adora’s body, before the it pools in her chest and propels upward and into the heart.

Catra watches in stunned silence as the light travels deep into the core and vanishes, leaving her in darkness again. 

She waits, and waits, because it has to do something, it has to mean something. This can’t be some cosmic joke taunting her one last time.

And then there’s a warmth on her cheek. It presses in softly, brushing away tears she thought had long since dried up. Catra stares down at the source. There, staring back up at her, gentle blue eyes glowing, was Adora. Her hand on Catra’s cheek, her thumb brushing away her tears.

“Hey, Catra.” Adora whispers. She smiles, a small thing, shy and hopeful. It fills Catra with so much, her heart wants to rip out of her chest and bury itself in this beautiful, bright,  _ stupid  _ girl.

For the first time in a long time, Catra smiles, as the Heart above her soaks the room in light.

“Hey, Adora.”


End file.
